


Too Smart for Me

by Kitsubasa



Category: Fallout (Video Games), Fallout 4
Genre: F/M, Recreational Drug Use
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-23
Updated: 2015-12-23
Packaged: 2018-05-08 16:22:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,843
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5504561
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kitsubasa/pseuds/Kitsubasa
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A visit to The Slog sets off nearly all of Hancock's insecurities -- and it doesn't help that Nora's making friends like a pro.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Too Smart for Me

"It's not working."

"What's not working?"

"The sword."

"A sword's not working."

"That's what I said."

"A solid piece of metal."

"Did you even look at it?"

"Would've if I could've, but you looted like a woman possessed."

"It's got canisters and gaskets and an ignition."

"What's a sword need those for?"

Nora swings it in an arc, catching a bush on fire and gifting us a light in the eight-o'-clock blue.

"Good enough reason," I stall, hovering my free hand over our bonfire. The flames shoot along the stalks and stems, winding their way to the ground. They expire in the dirt. Curtains called with no likely encore, I continue past her little playhouse. "If the point is burning things, I don't get what's not working."

"The _actual_ point isn't burning things. Like, the front half isn't turning on," she holsters the weapon over her shoulder, slipping it into a golf bag. "If something walks full onto the blade, it'll roast, but if I'm slashing with the tip, not so much."

"Sussed that in the time it took to clear the roof, huh? I've been snacking on one smart sugar bomb."

"Not smart enough. Can't repair this alone," she flutters her eyelashes my way. "Maybe if you had bought me a flaming sword new rather than making me scavenge..."

"Should've asked for one sooner. Could've sweet-talked Kleo," I hang my shotgun at my hip. "How 'bout we find the nearest settlement, creep around their backrooms for the night, and ask for repairs come morning?"

"Lights up ahead," she says, raising her pointer finger and gesturing through the wilderness.

Several rises and thickets later, there's the lovechild of a home and a metal shack. Similar sort of architecture to Diamond City's private housing. Big and rickety.

"Anything more to do at the Ironworks? Don't want to go for a dip in those toasty-looking swimming pools?"

"Been flayed once already, wouldn't recommend the experience."

We pick our way through the uneven ground, easing around rocks and digging our toes into eroded ridges.

"Or we could stand on top of one. Catch the heat waves. I miss saunas."

"Saunas?" it takes me a moment. "Think there's one under Diamond City. Wooden room with benches. So they're meant to be hot?"

"You strip down, fill them with steam, and they clear out your pores. Leave you squeaky-clean," she gives a housewife-sigh. Hoovers another experience into the dustbag of the past. "We'll sneak you through security and we'll visit it. I think all we need is water and heat."

"If it involves you in your underwear, love to -- but I'm thinkin' it's a bad idea," I give her my hand, first to help her over a step in the grass, then to remind her the issues vis-a-vis my flesh and structural integrity. "I get damp and I reek worse than a wet dog, unless you dump enough rads in to cancel the active decay."

"So we add rads," Nora grins. "Long term, baby."

Beat still my heart. Used to bits of me giving out, I can hack it.

"Shit, speaking of," she peels a length of wirey fence to the side, stepping onto a concrete pad. "Look what we've found."

Pool full of tarberries, two ghouls lounging in chairs on the other side. Halogens dot the rim, shine from the house and shed fronting the shallows. More ghouls inside. Corn stalks staking out the background.

"Maybe don't mention 'long term' to these folks," I lead the way around the pool, halting by the deck chairs and their lookalike occupants. Black eyes, farm clothes, bald. "Sorry for interrupting your evening, gents."

"Telling you Naresh, a pump there'll just -- oh, hey newcomer," ghoul numero uno, left ghoul, Gwinnett ghoul, turns to me.

"Hey indeed," ghoul number two, right ghoul, whiskey ghoul, echoes.

"Can a townie get a bed around here? Happy to throw caps at the powers that be, if need be," I adjust my hat and fold my arms. Then I unfold them, and adjust it again.

"We're full up inside, but you can have these deck chairs and some spare bedding, if that's alright," right ghoul says. "Best to speak with Wiseman about her before the pair of you settle. He likes to double-check before hosting humans overnight."

Nora moves alongside me with perfect timing. "I guess that's fair. Where can we find him?"

"Inside?" Left ghoul says.

"Inside." Right ghoul confirms.

Nora and I abandon the deckchair ghouls, setting our sights on the corrugated house.

"Look at you, getting nervous," she elbows me. "What gives, Mr. Mayor?"

"How often do we see more than two ghouls at once outside Goodneighbor? Not counting ferals or scavs," oughtta be honest while I have the chance. "You know I done stupid things to myself. Meeting new people, my people, 'specially out in the boondocks... have to wonder how they'd react if they knew this was intentional."

"They'd probably be happy for you."

"Nah. First year in office, kid writer from Diamond wandered into town saying he needed to suffer for his art by sittin' in some empty building. No addictions, no illness, no criminal record. Not even an extra toe. Got a dozen letters saying Ma and Pa Cohen wanted him home," I take a pack of cigarettes from my coat pocket and light one as we walk. "Would've been almost tolerable if he hadn't complained about the lifestyle day-in day-out. Almost drove the Watch feral. Found him and his typewriter under my stairs, stinking up the basement. Never figured who did it -- too many suspects."

"This is an analogy, isn't it."

"Run into a nasty situation out of self-pity, the people there for better reasons find pitchforks," press the smoke to my mouth. "Waitin' for the prongs in my chest."

She doesn't get the chance to reply -- two ghouls inside, a lady to the left and a guy in front of us.

Wiseman's got his face to a shelf, sorting through cans in differing states of gloss and grime. None to his liking, he straightens his spine, ready to check the next shelf up, when --

"Wiseman?" Nora says.

"Mm?" he turns on one heel.

Wish I could categorise him as another bald farm-ghoul. But the pattern of marks around his mouth, the sore lines about his eyes: he's lurching into my vision out of a Diamond memory.

I face the opposite wall, leaving him and Nora with my back and two points of my hat. I heave in the cigarette. Thing was only ever intended to defuse anxiety over talking to ghoul miscellany, not a specific fear like the one Wiseman's dredging up. Fuck.

Move outside. Maybe my staggered exit'll be inconspicuous. Slide onto my tailbone, parking against the corrugated house wall. Drag so strong I oughtta skip the middleman, toss the stick down my throat, have a main meal of the rest of the pack.

Pat my pockets from front to rear. Jet, Jet, Jet... but I gave the last shooter to Nora. Only have Mentats and Psycho. One'll make me sharper, the other'll make a scene. Neither's right.

"Are you alright?" the lady from inside pokes her head through the doorframe.

"Got any Jet?" I reply.

"Not while Gianna's trying to kick the habit," she huffs.

"We're ghouls, can't hurt her," press the stump of my smoke into the damp concrete.

"Hurts our wallets," the lady disappears with another grumble.

I sit in a conspicuous pile, sore red and frilly, fumbling through a cigarette carton every five minutes and flicking my lighter like I'm shouting in morse code. Workers gather thicker around the deck chairs; pretty gal with grey hair, nondescript plaid people. My toes curl, I hunch in foetal position and plant my face in my knees.

Nora, what's keeping you?

Can't track how long I spend in the darkness of my lower thighs. Someone else tries to ask me who, how I am -- but lady-ghoul from inside tells them not to bother. With this stellar approval rating, might as well run for mayor here next election. You know they'd love it.

"Hancock," here she is.

"Nora."

"Shall we move somewhere quieter?"

"Sweetest offer you've ever made."

We circle the building, coming to a stop in an area with a separate fence. Nora's given me enough of a pre-war education now that I can recognise a swingset and a slide. Children's playground -- doesn't stop us sitting on the swings.

She kicks back and forward, then pauses. Bending over, she takes her boots off, and places them beside her. She resumes swinging with toes curled, dirt clutched underneath them and released at the top of each motion. "Wiseman told me about Diamond City."

"How much?" I rock maybe three inches.

"Better summary than you or the current townsfolk gave me," she says, her voice approaching and retreating. "You never mentioned the feral attack."

"Does it make a difference?"

"It makes things --" I shoot her a look, "-- it makes me understand why they turned so quickly. You talk like your brother single-handedly convinced everyone they wanted the ghouls gone, when it was more a case of people getting scared and someone suggesting how to stop being afraid."

"Plenty folks skip to feral without passing through common-or-garden ghoul. What they did wasn't a solution for anything."

"I'm not saying it was. I'm saying I've found some missing puzzle pieces," she digs her heels in, braking the swing. "Did I hear you begging Jet off someone?"

"Not allowed any. Worker's trying to kick an addiction."

"Ouch. Guess I'll keep it in my pocket," she stands, taking her boots in her arms. "Apparently there's a tinker here who can fix my sword. I'll be in the shed if you need me."

"I'll be hiding in that saucer," avoiding adult conversation like the child I am. Relative to most of the commune, that's no joke.

"I think you should talk to Wiseman," she dusts her soles on a patch of grass, then takes the step back onto the concrete. "Philosophical guy, and I didn't see any forks in there."

"Sooner take up tarberry harvesting. I don't make a habit of conversing with smarter mouths than mine," I do as I promised -- edging up three little rungs in a baby ladder, then lying face-first on the plastic saucer ground. My feet stick out the doorway.

"Stay there too long and I'll send someone to bother you. Make some friends, Hancock, it's what roadtrips are about!"

"Do that, I'll beat feet for Goodneighbor," I hold a middle finger against the domed window. "Getting a headache anyway."

Nora loves at least one thing more than me, and that's pushing her uncanny luck. Twenty minutes pass quiet-like, then a set of steel-capped toes clang into the saucer with me.

"Hi stranger," comes the raspy voice of a female ghoul. It's Miss Grey Hair from the pool. Must've been stress that bleached it, because her body and her face, texture aside, aren't much older than thirty. Her front half is lodged through the door, while her legs balance on the stairs. She keeps a constant smile.

"Okay, too cramped. Onto the ground," I wave her back, she complies.

We take places standing on the dirt.

"The smoothskin said the pair of you were together-together," the sentence arrives like a train, forceful, words staggered into compartments. She stares at my shins. "Wanted to know how that happened. Style like that, you'd have the best shot of any of us... but I'm still surprised."

"Should've kept conversing with her, sister," I shrug, glancing inside the saucer and outside the mesh fence. "She's the one asked me. Got a little too bashful, she caught it, asked to go steady there and then. Been a month together in two days time."

"She asked you?" that's what I said, Miss Grey. Her mouth hangs open, leaving two big holes in her face. "I can't get a date for the life of me. I tried in Covenant, they're nicer than Bunker Hill, but the only person interested was this woman who's obsessed with tending corn --"

I get a five-minute speech about someone's maize fixation. With this level of self-awareness, Miss Grey might as well be feral. Never mentioning this to Nora. The irony of complaining about someone complaining about someone who never stops complaining about corn wouldn't be half-lost on her.

"-- burn every ear Wiseman hands me. How's Goodneighbor? Decent pickings?"

"No comment," no point window shopping for other rides when mine's the best.

"Was it a shock?" her eyes swell for a total of four dark circles in her sick-white skin.

"Was what a shock? Nora?" if I keep on the topic of my girlfriend, Miss Grey'll have to bow out sometime.

"Going ghoul, silly. It was recent, wasn't it? You're Mcdonough's brother, aren't you?"

Nora's way over the line.

Sending someone to bother me, sure -- I was in a mood, I deserved a kick for it. Sending someone with my dossier, ready to exploit issues I've hardly admitted? Whatever pre-war mom-logic she's running on, time to can it and cram it where the sun don't shine.

"That's private information, why'd she share it?" I pry myself onto my tiptoes and grit my teeth, looming over the Know-It-All Nora-Lackey. Shift my left leg, bumping my shotgun with a click.

"What is?" Grey's unfazed and confused. "Nobody shared anything -- your voice, I recognised your voice. From once every three or four weeks at the Bobrovs'. You'd order rum and cola, and sigh into a book. No-one read books in there, plus you were upper stands. I'm Holly -- Holly Stanton."

Goddamn bartender Holly. Fathoms under the rum waves, wouldn't have surfaced to that conclusion swimming on my lonesome, but with the rope she's thrown -- is every ghoul here an ex-Diamond? Well, stud a fucking crown.

"How'd it happen? I know you were back-and-forth between towns, but I didn't think there was enough radiation in the city."

The lie foams onto my tongue, easy enough to throw up for a random in the Wasteland, but here it keeps getting thicker, clogging my mouth. "Don't ask," I gurgle.

"I understand getting antsy around smoothskins, but we can talk. I thought Goodneighbor had plenty of ghouls -- do you really never chat origins?" she takes two steps away. Not enough space in town to bring me down.

"I need a smoke," even that's a lie, I need something stronger, knock-me-out strong. I swing around and storm for the playground gate.

"Mcdonough?!"

I'm sprinting through dead grass for a nearby diner, dodging car wrecks and boulders. Night makes my footwork sloppy. I'm kicking things like a drunk drifter, stubbing every toe I've still got. Start tripping through empty dirt. The airbags in my chest inflate and deflate trying their best to be lungs again.

Throw myself onto a bench, knocking a skeleton couple from their last embrace. Everyone's a tragedy here. Some Shakespearean, some running with Boston's main man Poe. Trust me to go Greek -- fatal flaws, self-made. I'm maybe five minutes from gouging my eyes or having my head lopped off by groupies.

Pat my pockets from front to rear. Jet, Jet, Jet... but Nora didn't give me her spare.

I hyperventilate, head resting in a skeleton's crotch.

I clutch my hands to my collarbones.

I grip my hands around my lapels.

I fold my hands over my chest.

I'm a ghoul. Going without can't hurt me.

I hook my legs over the bench arm, dangling my feet. Sure this thing's full of splinters, probably a fracture pattern of solid white paint on my coat, femur denting my neck's no fun. But I can lie here, I can breathe. Approach calm at my own pace.

This far north of the city, the nights get real dark. Puts a hard limit on how far you can go -- sky's a big black 'no entry', slamming you to earth. Once, people looked into it and saw opportunity. Maybe the Institute dreams past the stars, but the rest of us break at atmosphere.

So I can't run forever.

Steps in the grass, thudding toward me. It's not Nora or Holly. Too tired, too flat-footed.

"I heard you've been avoiding me," the figure grips the bench slats above my head, fingers settling into the grooves. He smiles down. "'Hancock' now, isn't it?"

"Mayor Hancock," I say. My heart's starting a revolution in my chest. Never been able to stop those. "Moved up in the world. You too, community leader Wiseman."

"I consider it a lateral shift. I was a farmer in Diamond City, I'm a farmer here in The Slog."

"Never dictated anyone's gourd-picking back home," I clap my hands over my face. There we go, the 'H' word.

"'Home'," he's not half-subtle disagreeing with the term. "I doubt you'd have left if you considered it that."

I sit properly.

He paces around the bench and settles beside me.

"When he and I were lowtown, living little at Home Plate, I maybe could've," the lights only worked in half the building, so we sectioned off the dirt floor and let it to folks who needed dark storage space. Could always rely on one taker in particular -- a smart old ghoul with a stockpile of canned soup and fermenting drink.

"I remember you scampering off to Goodneighbor long before you shifted to the stands," Wiseman passes me a bottle of moonshine.

"Needed to see the world," I open it, chug a third. "Didn't need to leave for it 'til later."

"So you wouldn't have to fight your brother for mayoralty?"

I clap the bottle on the bench.

"Sorry. I won't pry into your reasons for leaving, and I'd like to apologise for Holly asking what happened to make you one of us, but --"

"I left right after you. I did this to myself," ten words, it's done.

My pulse settles to barely functioning, my lungs shrivel into place. Raise the bottle, drink another third. Huffing that chem, this, they're the 'moment of truth' -- the moment. You say it, you spray it, you take that shot. Done is done.

Wiseman is thinking.

"Wake each morning, wonder -- was that selfish? Each morning -- yeah, it was. But it was a gamble that paid," the bottle teeters above my mouth. "You never wanted to be dealt in, you lost anyway. And Holly can't get a date."

"Hancock."

"Talking to most folks about Diamond City got a lot easier when I went ghoul. Tell someone your brother banned a species from the only civilised place in the state, you're trash. Tell someone your brother banned _your_ species, flub the timeline --"

"Hancock!" Wiseman grabs the base of the bottle, along with my attention. "This isn't your tragedy to stew over."

My mouth's earning me a bloody rest under the basement stairs.

"I was going to say... 'I won't pry, I'd like to apologise for Holly, but I hope you'll consider this a second home'. Pity gets a family nowhere," his fingers unwrap from the glass one at a time. "You're welcome if you treat us as equals. Your girlfriend is welcome unconditionally. She's offered to run an errand once Arlen's repaired her sword."

"She's a catch, alright," I can't look him in the eyes. "Almost wanna say she's wasted on me."

"Stop that," he says.

"What?"

"Self-deprecating."

I leave my seat, stepping to the ridge. Boot-ends hang over the edge. Rocks crumble underneath. I give the river a look, the sky a second. The later it gets, the less space to run. Eats the land until five or six AM, then spits it out.

"What do you want me to do?"

"Talk to her."

I turn to face him, hands bunching inside my cuffs. "Sound like an idiot, don't I?"

"Just young," he grabs through his pocket and produces a flask. Toasts it my way. "Needing a bit of guidance with love, leadership, whatever else."

"Yeah, you'd say that," make my way past the bench, toward the pool lights. "Thanks, Wiseman. For letting me get my stupid out."

"'Misguidedness'," he corrects me as I go.

"Great, keep spoutin' euphemisms, not like confidence tours me bad places."

Up the rise, onto the concrete, parking near the shallows.

Ghouls're inside now.

Collapse my legs and swing them over the lip. Kick my heels on the tiling. Water's too low to splash with. No fun in farming. I'd never have the discipline for it. Colonising weird places and repurposing them to be boring.

"Thank you so much, Arlen," glance ahead to see a lady in mismatched armor and aviators stepping out the shed. Sad, old voice creaks a response at her. She waves goodbye, then she wanders to me. "You, sir, are in trouble."

"When am I not?" I motion at the ground at my side.

She takes the spot, cross-legged. Leans on my shoulder. "Did you have to be mean to Holly? She seemed nice. Cute haircut."

"Is running away mid-talk mean? You do it to Garvey nine-times-outta-ten."

"Garvey's a plank of wood," won't debate that.

"And Holly?"

"Holly's a girl looking for love. Maybe even in the form of a threeway. Maybe even with us," Nora's smile gets wicked.

"Might say yes along the road," snake a hand around hers, squeezing her fingers together. "Tonight I'm tired."

"Alright. Can I talk you into something else, then?" the devil disappears from her grin. "Get in the pool with me."

"What?"

"I need to show you something stupid."

No harm obliging -- slide off, land shin-deep in water. Boots might be leather, but they're wet often enough; wouldn't spot new damage. There's that weighty feeling, liquid seeping through my ditches and dents. Reminders I'm pitted like a peach and juice can flood me how it wants.

Nora splashes near me. She takes my hand again, leads me to the deep end.

We're just past hip height.

"I feel like a flesh sieve."

"Shh," she raises a finger over her lips. "Stupid time."

Flopping backward through a cluster of tarberries, she submerges herself. Waves water everywhere, only stills when there's nothing still dry. Stands again with her hair dripping and her brows lowered. "I'm maybe ninety-per-cent sure that water's irradiated. If I went ghoul right now, would you hate me for it?"

Give her a look. "Mostly I'd think you're an idiot."

"You'd be right. But would you hate me?"

"That'd make me a bigger idiot."

"Exactly," she beams. "I'm sure Wiseman's said something to you, but I'm not sure it's enough. Hancock, you tell the bare-bones chem story to anyone with ears. You're happy for people to know you're an idiot. And if they hear the rest? Just makes you a bigger idiot to them. Nothing bad, nothing sad. Just an idiot."

"So...?"

"So play nice, be open, and give me a goddamn kiss for being right," she pushes her lips out, from smile to pucker. Allows me a moment. Taps them twice with her forefinger.

I lean in, provide what she's after.

Yeah -- making out in an irradiated pool.

We're _both_ idiots.

**Author's Note:**

> If it wasn't obvious, this mostly stemmed from frustration at Hancock's lack of interactions with anyone at The Slog. For someone who lived in Diamond City, who has a lot of angst over the ghouls getting kicked out, and who has proven hang-ups relating to romance... he was oddly quiet around a commune of Diamond City ghouls, including one aggressively looking for love. Consequently, it turned out a bit meandering, but hey. Hope it was a worthwhile read anyway, and thanks for making it this far. : )


End file.
